The city was
taken over by Japanese troops on the first day of the Manchuria
Incident, 18 September 1931. Renamed Hsinking ("New Capital") by the
Japanese as the capital of the
puppet state
of Manchukuo, the city had a very
sizeable
Japanese population and had been heavily modernized. Total population in 1940 was 544,200 persons. It was the
principal base for Kwantung
Army, with 10, 28 and 29 Divisions in the
area when war broke out in the Pacific. The city remained in Japanese hands until the Russian intervention of August 1945.